My Cat

I haven't blogged for a while and it's been intentional because I knew when I did I would have to talk about my cat.

My cat, Pyewacket, is sick. He has gingival squamous cell cancer and unfortunately it is too far back his jaw for any treatment. The treatment for this would have been a mandibulectomy and radiation therapy. We were told that we would most likely have to have him euthanised in about, well, 3-4 weeks now. We have another appointment tonight to check that he is still ok and that we are not being cruel by keeping him alive. It's pretty hard and I guess I'm still kinda in denial maybe? I have no idea how I will handle this and I feel kinda sick every time I think about having to do the deed. Tough times ahead for us and I hope we have the strength to cope.

Feeling less social!

Having fallen so deeply down the rabbit hole of social networking and microblogging madness, I'm now finding it difficult to keep up with everyone and still lead a normal life. I'm thinking about dedicating a day of the week to just trying to catch up.

I feel so social

My work has started using Twitter and curiosity got the better of me so I've signed up too. This of course led me to investigating Twitterfeed and using this to update my twitter with my blog posts and ravelry projects. From here HelloTxt caught my eye and I signed up for this and added in all my social networking sites: Bebo, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. A slight detour took me by way of Feedburner and Google Reader. Then I saw an advert for Digsby, so I downloaded this and added in all my IM clients, MSN, Yahoo, GTalk and Facebook Chat. So now no matter what I do online, about a billion socialmicrobloggingwebsites will know what I am doing/thinking and I'm not even that interesting.

The Cupcake Cat

Steve explained to me in the pub the other night that Warren's girlfriend had made excellent muffins for the office the other day, and that my DH had said I make great cupcakes. Of course Steve needed proof of these great cupcakes so I baked up some chocolatey goodness for their office

I usually make cinnamon ones because they're my favs. I'm not really a fan of chocolate cake, so I figured it would be in everyone's best interest if I made chocolate ones!

My cat adores cupcakes. I know he loves plain and cinnamon cupcakes, and it looks like I can add chocolate to the list too. When DH tried to feed him this morning, he totally turned his nose up at it and returned to the kitchen to watch the cupcakes. DH is off to work with 11 cupcakes, as I shared one with the cat this morning.

I'm making tea loaf tonight, I don't think he's a fan of dried fruit but I suppose we'll soon see.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

I must be mad or something but I went to see Confessions of a Shopaholic last night. I have read almost all the books each of which drove me insane to the point where I would shout at the book scaring my cats and prompting my husband to look up funny farms on yell.com - I would be there for sure if I'd read the one with the baby. The reason for the outbursts was that the main character was utterly annoying and needed a good shake. Still I read on enjoying the fashion and the romance.

I must say the movie was great! Some of the storyline had changed which worked better for the movie format but more importantly the main character was engaging and fun. I'm sure there was some kind of lesson in it, but I was distracted by the shoes.

Awesome Auckland

It's a typical Saturday evening. I'm sitting on the sofa drinking tea with DH watching TV. Except that it's Bells tea, the Wellington Sevens are on TV and I'm in Auckland!!

From New Zealand 2009

The first few days were a little tense when neither myself or DH could take out cash from any of the ATMs, but a quick call to the bank to confirm it was really us and we were overseas sorted that out. Lesson learned: Use travellers cheques!



I also got really bad sunburn spending the day wandering around town with no sunblock on. I didn't realise until that evening when I started to glow red. As is typical for me, I was wearing a T shirt and everything else I have to wear has straps and a lower neck line so I've got to go about with red arms and neck and the rest of my skin is white. Lesson learned: Always wear sunblock!

However, the past few days I have felt the stress melt away in the heat of New Zealand summer.

I've watched street performers, saw fish and penguins at Kelly Tarltons, sun bathed at Okahu beach, ate great food, drank beers and shopped. And there's plenty more still to do.

From New Zealand 2009

My best purchase has been a new ice blue NDS Lite. It was a Waitangi day gift and I'm so happy to have one again :D


Staying in the CBD, I see Aucklanders going to and from work and they all look amazing. It's quite intimidating really. All the women are really slim and fit looking and wear great clothes. Everytime I thought I had spied an overweight person, it was actually a pregnant person. The men are the same, most likely hiding six packs under their very sharp and tailored business shirts.

It would appear to be easy to achieve the look here. I see ads on lampposts for CityRun.co.nz and see runners around town and with Albert Park and Auckland Domain so near, it's feasible to go for a 30 minute run on your lunch break. The local swimming pool, Tepid Baths is cheap and close to lots of offices. There are plenty of people roller blading, running and cycling around the bays. I even saw one guy on skis with wheels on the bottom, propelling himself along with ski poles. The supermarkets is full of fresh fruit and veges and there are plenty of healthy eateries around like Salad Works, Umi Sushi, Raw Power and Revive. And as for clothes, there are loads of clothes stores and shoe shops - it's a shopaholics dream!

I certainly feel inspired and invigorated and by the end of my holiday I hope to ready to take on the world again.

Post Festive Round Up

The run up to Christmas was fairly hectic to say the least! We now have our house on the market and it was a bit mad trying to finish up some last minute jobs, before travelling up to Orkney for Christmas and New Year.

Spending 2 weeks with my in-laws has certainly highlighted my hermit tendencies and has brought back childhood memories of hiding in my room for days just enjoying my own company and busying myself with whatever project took my fancy and only appearing for meals. My in-laws probably think I'm some weird antisocial crack-pot and perhaps to some extent that's true, although I would have been more social if my SIL and her fiancé were elsewhere. I find I can't relax in too much mess and their laziness was getting to me, but 3.5 bottles of sherry seemed to help a bit!

A few days before we were scheduled to come home, we had to go to the post office and outside a man in a wheel chair sped down the ramp and junk punched another man who was on a mobile phone at the time – not something you see every day!

I think the term junk punch is quite funny, so I decided to tell my MIL and FIL this story. I'm not sure if they understood, but I'm just pleased with myself that I brave enough to do it!

Since being back home it's been quite relaxing. However, there are plenty of things that need to be done and this weekend it all starts again. Clearing out cupboards, packing things, trying to find things again! It seems to be endless, but it's all worth it!